- apekary
How cable amplified the Big Lie
Twitter banned Trump from the platform specifically for how his tweets were "being received and interpreted on and off Twitter." Yet, all three cable networks continued to show Trump's tweets on screen.
Last year, the total airtime for his tweets was 1,924 minutes, or 32 hours. MSNBC accounted for 710 minutes, or nearly twelve hours. CNN came in second with 632 minutes, or ten-and-a-half hours. Fox contented itself with a mere 582 minutes, just under ten hours.
In my latest for CJR, find out exactly how many hours cable news aired disinformation about the election. Producers may defend the practice but it has continued beyond the inauguration and the effects are yet to be fully understood. I argue the networks should focus more on what people do rather than on what they say. And they should ignore blatant lies rather than impanel some talking heads to discuss them endlessly.
Read more here in my latest for CJR:
